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The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

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Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#131

Post by mercurysmessage »

ThomPete wrote: post #70

The best explanation I have heard of the financial crisis was in the book "The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking and the Future of the Global Economy" by the former head of Bank of England. It makes the convincing case that there is no real single place to point fingers and that the crash was the logical consequence of people all doing the "right thing" I can highly recommend it as it also takes a historical view of mon…

"Mixed with that and the liberal social welfare system in Europe and PC culture which claimed any critical voice was facist, racist etc. That's why the antiestablishment came about not because of 2008 and wallstreet."

Oh come on, this is ridiculous.

Pointing out fascism and racism doesn't turn people fascist or racist. If you think there aren't some problems with racism and fascists I don't know what to tell you, because there is lots of evidence.

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#132

Post by michaelt »

pas wrote: post #104
michaelt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what was the alternative to the bailouts? The bailouts, but engaging with the narrative of a rigged game and applying substantial and highly visible reforms to prevent another financial crisis. I mean, when your ship hits rocks you gotta patch the holes so you don't drown - but then you also gotta stop the captain navigating you into rocks. We did an OK job at the first, but did practically nothing about the seco…

There were "reforms" (or at least important fixes, like the stress test based financial sector oversight, and other stuff enacted in 2010 as the Dodd-Frank Act), but visibility was and still is shit. (And now Dodd-Frank is being reversed bit-by-bit, but again, nobody really cares, which is not surprising when there are new disasters every day in US politics.) The Obama stimulus was too small, and it simply took too m…

There were reforms to address banks not holding enough cash - but there wasn't anything to address the misaligned incentives and short-term-ism that rewarded people for mispricing assets.

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#133

Post by lovich »

josefresco wrote: post #83
andrepd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bailouts are controversial, but it's the bailouts AND the complete absence of criminal responsibility that's inexcusable. It is well known and documented that the financial crisis was no accident; everybody who headed the financial services industry to the state it was in did so knowingly , knowing full well the inevitable consequences, but not giving a damn because the arrangement let them to become handsomely w…

Confidence in the market , and preventing panic was the highest priority, which is why no bank executive was punished in any meaningful way. Frontline did a great piece on this, which I watched years ago. Not sure if this is it: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/meltdown/ I believe it also explains why the election hacking of 2016 wasn't and isn't being addressed fully. If the US were to admit actual votes were…

It degrades the rule of law when lawbreakers not only don't even get a slap on the wrist, but in fact get rewarded for their lawbreaking.

Since the confidence in the markets only exists because people believe the laws governing it will be enforced, not punishing anyone degrades the confidence in the market.

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#134

Post by shshhdhs »

josefresco wrote: post #116
dhimes wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwing the bad guys in jail would have spurred even more confidence in the market. The same guys are still in charge.

"The same guys are still in charge" The problem is, there are no "other guys".

That’s not true

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#135

Post by lovich »

josefresco wrote: post #116
dhimes wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwing the bad guys in jail would have spurred even more confidence in the market. The same guys are still in charge.

"The same guys are still in charge" The problem is, there are no "other guys".

There are shit tons of other "guys". The industry is making new "guys" every year.

Maybe they don't have as much experience as the current guys, but does that matter when those people use their experience to rush after profit for themselves when they know it will cause problems like this?

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#136

Post by shshhdhs »

rwc wrote: post #102
bitxbit wrote: post #68

I experienced the financial crisis first hand on Wall Street, a place fraught with people who pretended to know the ins and outs of risks. It was also a brutally honest place when it came to winners and losers. But that changed when Hank Paulson, then the Secretary of Treasury, knelt down on camera and begged Nancy Pelosi for what was effectively a blank check. Wall Street could not face reality when it was its turn…

Wow I don’t remember this kneeling down on camera. Can you link?

I don’t recall him kneeling. I think the commentator was exaggerating

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#137

Post by claydavisss »

mercurysmessage wrote: post #131
ThomPete wrote: post #70

The best explanation I have heard of the financial crisis was in the book "The End of Alchemy: Money, Banking and the Future of the Global Economy" by the former head of Bank of England. It makes the convincing case that there is no real single place to point fingers and that the crash was the logical consequence of people all doing the "right thing" I can highly recommend it as it also takes a historical view of mon…

"Mixed with that and the liberal social welfare system in Europe and PC culture which claimed any critical voice was facist, racist etc. That's why the antiestablishment came about not because of 2008 and wallstreet." Oh come on, this is ridiculous. Pointing out fascism and racism doesn't turn people fascist or racist. If you think there aren't some problems with racism and fascists I don't know what to tell you, bec…

how do you "point out fascism"?

in today's culture, this term is used so broadly it has become meaningless. Can you point out some fascist behavior in the news?

more inane is the related accusation "literal Nazi"....ugh, no unless you were a member of the Nazi Party of Germany between 1933 and 1945, you are not a "literal Nazi"

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#138

Post by brainwad »

brobdingnagians wrote: post #3
nafey wrote: post #2

But what was the alternative to the bailouts? Another depression? I feel we made it across fairly well.

We haven't escaped the depression; the bailouts and quantitative easing simply delayed it for a bit, and the more it is delayed, the worse it will be. It would be far better to have economic corrections along the way with little dips than to keep the house of cards going on worse and worse foundations until it all falls apart in a large depression. Little distortions can be corrected in the short term, but keeping th…

The banks paid back their bailout loans, with interest. There was no way the borrowers who got those no-doc loans in the mid-00s could have ever paid off those loans. Bailing out the borrowers would have actually cost money, and would have created enormous moral hazard.

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#139

Post by vinceguidry »

wuschel wrote: post #86
vinceguidry wrote: post #14

The takeaway I got from reading the article to the end does not match the impression given by the headline, though the headline isn't exactly wrong, per se. The conclusion given is that the mechanisms put in place to avoid another recession work just fine but that the political will to use them has been dried up by the political retrenchment of the right. That said, if you're at all curious, you should read the artic…

Just had to look up what you mean by 'alt-right': Quoting Wikipedia: "The alt-right, or alternative right, is a loosely-connected and somewhat ill-defined grouping of white supremacists/white nationalists, neo-Nazis, neo-fascists, neo-Confederates, Holocaust deniers, and other far-right fringe hate groups." This does not sound like the average citizen to me, but rather the extreme part of the spectrum of values. I'd…

Neo-nazis and such are the fringe of the movement. They were also around long-before the term 'alt-right' existed.

Alt-right is the political upswelling that attended Trump's massive rallies, gathered and orchestrated around the likes of Alex Jones. My personal definition is "anyone who felt like they got left out of the modern world."

Perhaps my definition isn't in line with how people really want to use it, and if that's the case, that's unfortunate. Restricting a broad term like alt-right to just the likes of neo-nazis gives them way more legitimacy than they deserve and overstates their numbers.

Re: The Real Cost of the 2008 Financial Crisis

#140

Post by pc86 »

josefresco wrote: post #83
andrepd wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bailouts are controversial, but it's the bailouts AND the complete absence of criminal responsibility that's inexcusable. It is well known and documented that the financial crisis was no accident; everybody who headed the financial services industry to the state it was in did so knowingly , knowing full well the inevitable consequences, but not giving a damn because the arrangement let them to become handsomely w…

Confidence in the market , and preventing panic was the highest priority, which is why no bank executive was punished in any meaningful way. Frontline did a great piece on this, which I watched years ago. Not sure if this is it: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/meltdown/ I believe it also explains why the election hacking of 2016 wasn't and isn't being addressed fully. If the US were to admit actual votes were…

When people who know what they're talking about talk about "election hacking," they know that no actual hacking took place. They were Facebook ads. That's it.
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